One of my wife’s favorite things about St. Patrick’s Day is that each year she gets to play the song “You’re Not Irish,” mocking my German heritage (she’s about one-quarter Irish, which is apparently “good enough”). But even if you’re not Irish, you can make a great Irish Red Ale. Mine, fittingly, goes by the name “You’re Not Irish Red,” and the key to it is in one specific malt addition and the yeast.
Style
Irish Red shares a lot of terrain with its cousins, Scottish ales, across the Irish Sea: both are malt-oriented, both are easy-drinking, both are low-alcohol and low-bittering, and both feature some solid (but not overwhelming) caramel notes. Irish Red, though, flirts with the higher end of all these characteristics, and as a result the key feature is balance. We want to ensure that all the flavors (base malt, caramel, roast, bitterness, and even alcohol) are felt, but not pushing to the fore. It can be a tough needle to thread, and I’ve drunk (and made, as I was working toward my recipe) more than my fair share of watery or heavy or roasty Irish Reds.
Ingredients
There are two key elements to my recipe, but the rest you can play with a bit. In many ways it’s a straight-up British Isles grist: a good Maris Otter base to whatever OG you like (I go to about 5.5 percent potential ABV, though anything from 4.5–6 percent is fine). Then use about 5 percent of that weight in equal parts light and dark crystal malt (I like Fawcett 45L and Crystal 120). Choose any hops variety to achieve about 23 IBUs in a 60-minute addition. Tinker away.
However, there are two aspects that you don’t want to mess with when working with this style.
First, a vital component of this beer is its level of perceived sweetness. Some of this we’ll deal with in the “Process” section below, but there’s an important recipe element, which is the use of chocolate malt to add some color and a touch of drying roast. That said, here’s the thing: you don’t actually want the beer to taste roasty, you just want it to feel roasty—and you can drive yourself crazy trying to find the right malt and the right amount.
I address this, first and foremost, by going very low on the chocolate Lovibond range, but even pale chocolate malts seem to generate those chocolate/coffee flavors I don’t want (and that judges have noted as being too strong). The answer I found was an addition of about 4 percent chocolate rye malt. It’s kilned to a lower Lovibond than just about any chocolate malt (about 250L on average, just like pale chocolate). Its Lovibond range is usually greater (180–300L), whereas pale chocolate is in a much tighter window (220–280L), and that means you’re getting some higher-crystal grains in addition to the genuine chocolate-roasted kernels. Also, obviously, rye has a slightly different flavor that comes across more like milk chocolate (plus some spice) than dark chocolate. Once I started substituting the chocolate rye, the “too much roast” comments from judges went away, and scores went from the high 30s (very good) to the low-to-mid 40s (excellent).
Second, this is one of the only beers where I depart from my “house” yeasts. For ales, I do almost everything with Wyeast 1007 German Ale yeast. But for Irish Red, I go with Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale/White Labs WLP004 Irish Ale yeast. It imparts a roundness to the malt flavor that just doesn’t exist with the German Ale yeast, though the limited ester profile and attenuation are virtually identical. You can try it out with a number of strains (and I did), but the dedicated Irish Ale strain has always done the best job for me.
Process
How you use that yeast is also important. You want to treat this beer more like a hybrid than an ale. I like to start fermentation at 63°F (17°C) for the first four or five days, and then raise the temperature to 68°F (20°C) to finish out, ending with a diacetyl rest just above that (since diacetyl isn’t really appropriate here, but British strains sometimes overproduce its precursor). This will also promote full attenuation and help avoid a heavy or sweet flavor profile, both of which would be unsuitable for this style.
I also find that undershooting on carbonation helps showcase the softness of the malts, so I carbonate to only about 1.9 volumes of CO2. Too much carbonation might impart a too-great impression of bitterness and/or roast, and undermine all your hard work to this point!
In Closing
I may not be Irish, but I make a pretty solid Irish Red. If you’re looking for a great “utility” beer that almost anyone can drink and appreciate at almost any time of year, this is a winner! But avoid the temptation to go too big, too loud, or too far with any of the flavors—save that for the partying on St. Patrick’s Day.
Slainte.